‘Last Word’

[Re Life Story: “Activist Brenda Churchill Was a ‘Fierce’ Advocate,” December 24]: Brenda Kai Churchill saw through the noise with unflinching clarity — she was someone whose innate sense of self-preservation, strength and justice shaped everything she touched. She showed up — always. Invite her anywhere and she would come, ready to share her story and truly listen to yours.

Brenda owned her choices completely. Not everyone agreed with them, but she had a gift for helping you understand what mattered and why. She loved to dance, savored a good party or coffee, and transformed even chance encounters at the market into moments of genuine connection.

She was a terrible joke teller — as am I. We’d try to outdo each other, always ending in the kind of laughter that deepens friendship.

We stood together on protest lines and at Statehouse functions, including crucial conversations with Gov. Phil Scott about LGBTQ Vermonters’ rights. Brenda was a fierce comrade who understood that justice doesn’t come easily — so she became an unwavering voice to advocate, educate and fight.

Her vision for LGBTQ equality leaves a profound legacy. Like all true warriors, she held her ground when it mattered most. In these challenging times, we carry forward what she taught us: that courage means showing up, speaking out and never backing down.

Oh, F*ck

Why the fuck do you tolerate your junior staff racing to the bottom of journalistic wit by embracing this degenerate trend [“Read a F*cking Book,” December 17]? I’m all for creative, controversial and challenging journalism. However, “Read a F*cking Book” is offensive and distracting and betrays that the author probably has not read enough good books to appreciate a meaningful placement of the word “fuck” or “fucking.” Is the author of this article truly interested in promoting the value of reading, or is he instead perhaps experiencing an intellectual deficit or hasn’t yet experienced the epiphany of soul-stirring fucking?

Yes, I have observed the creep of the variations of “fuck” into casual conversation; however, it grates, is a poor substitute for any number of more nuanced adjectives or adverbs, and, sadly, suggests a certain existential resignation, ultimately dragging the quality of discourse and editorial content down, down, down, as well as the cachet of the word and idea of fucking.

Encourage your editorial staff to reach high, challenging themselves to produce superior work in 2026.

Kudos on continuing to continue! Looking forward to Seven Days in the New Year.

McNeil Is Necessary

[Re “Report IDs Options to Reduce McNeil Emissions,” November 28, online; Feedback: “Time to Close McNeil,” December 10; Feedback: “View From the Overpass,” December 17]: The opinion frequently expressed in Seven Days, urging the prompt closure of the McNeil Generating Station, is harmful to our shared goal of making Vermont’s electricity carbon-neutral. The output of Vermont’s growing solar installations is only a few percent of their installed capacity at this time of year due to short day length, frequently overcast weather and snow accumulation on panels.

There is no doubt that solar can and should contribute more to our electricity supply. With the incorporation of adequate (and costly) battery capacity, it could substantially cover our spring and summer loads. It will, however, do little to meet our fall and winter needs.

Winter demand is growing due to fast adoption of heat pumps and EVs, both seen as necessary to reduce carbon emissions. Heat pumps and EVs are both less efficient at low temperature, compounding the problem.

We are fortunate that McNeil is still operating, especially now that it is only running in the winter, when it is profitable. About 100 years of forest regrowth are needed to sequester the carbon released by wood-fired power generation. This is much better than the millions of years that were needed to sequester carbon in fossil fuels.

McNeil was built with the expectation that its waste heat would be used to heat Burlington, or at least the University of Vermont and its medical center. Before we rush to close McNeil, we should revisit these opportunities.

Consider the Alternatives

[Re Feedback: “Time to Close McNeil,” December 10]: Closing McNeil? The big question that everyone has to ask themselves is: What baseload renewable 24-7 generating source are you going to replace the McNeil Generating Station with? It won’t be intermittent solar, even with battery backup, or offshore wind off the East Coast.

Every decision we make to get off fossil fuels must be weighed against other options. Maybe a nuclear plant in Chittenden County, which is carbon-free, but leaves us with nuclear waste for hundreds of years. Just give it some thought!

Solar Has Limits

I read with great interest the cover article regarding the role of solar power in the energy mix [“Star Power: Ripton Writer and Activist Bill McKibben Has Surprisingly Sunny News for Our Gloomy Times: The Solar Age Has Dawned,” November 26]. I have owned two net-zero homes in Vermont due to solar arrays and am an ardent proponent.

Those of us who have powered our homes in Vermont are all aware of an extremely predictable annual cycle, with excess power being put back into the grid around the summer solstice and a large deficit surrounding the winter solstice, even if snow is not an issue. Solar homes can be net-zero based on the total annual production, but not reliably during the winter months.

As such, solar must be an important part of a thoughtful mixture of production, particularly as we as a nation become more and more dependent upon electricity in our daily lives.

Having been net-zero for almost 20 years due to solar panels is living proof solar is important, but looking at my array output in December makes it clear solar is part of a bigger puzzle.  

Truth About Tromp

Like John 8:32 in the Bible tells us, “The truth shall set you free.” As usual, Seven Days tells us the truth of what we want/need to know: that University of Vermont president Marlene Tromp is living with a collection of family members, likely rent-free, in the UVM president’s house [“The Cats Whisperer,” December 10].

The UVM Vermont Quarterly magazine recently did a piece on Tromp, telling us only that she would be living in the UVM house “with her son and members of her family,” which in an untransparent manner provided us with less than we would have wanted to know, and it all sounded weird and surreptitious.

Luckily, in her Seven Days story, reporter Anne Galloway stripped the carcass down to its feathers, telling us that Tromp would be housed at UVM with her ex-husband, son and sister.

I wonder if any other ride-alongs can get a free bed in Tromp’s family fraternity, and did UVM know when it hired Tromp as president that she’d be inviting members of her circus to set up camp with her, on both UVM’s and the public’s dime?

Good for Galloway

[Re From the Publisher: “Deep Digger,” December 10]: Anne Galloway? Twenty pounds of talent in a 10-pound sack.

Keep Farms Accountable

Thank you and the Conservation Law Foundation for taking on the thankless task of holding the Vorsteveld Farm accountable for polluting Lake Champlain [“Groups Sue Panton Farm Over Water Pollution,” December 16, online]. These renegade “farmers” clearly do not care about the common public or the health of their neighbors; their sloppy, incompetent work results in clearly visible pollution but far worse invisible pollution that only appears when organizations like CLF do the hard work testing and documenting the runoff.

I’ve done underwater archaeology with the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum, and we sail in the lake just north of Arnold Bay; we used to swim on hot days but now avoid contact with the water as much as possible. It’s not OK to “foul the nest,” and there is nothing sacred about farms and farming; while sometimes picturesque, their oversize potential to do harm is one of the greatest threats to the long-term health and attractiveness of our beloved state.

The solution is not rocket science; it’s part of the moral, political, ecological and social responsibility that civilized people recognize and respect. 

Protect Our ‘Brothers and Sisters’

Our elected officials and Vermont Air National Guard senior leadership informed us of the 158th Fighter Wing being mobilized. This is legitimate information for the public to know. They have our backs.

Meanwhile, in [“Vermont Air National Guard Is Heading to Puerto Rico to Join U.S. Buildup in the Region,” December 12], reporter Kevin McCallum revealed the destination was Puerto Rico, according to an unnamed source he quoted: “‘I’m just not supposed to say,’ the person said.”

McCallum and Seven Days, you have divulged sensitive information with regard to this mobilization. Why? Operations Security, aka OPSEC, is a systematic process used to protect sensitive information.

Those are our brothers and sisters headed out the door. God bless them and their families.

Before you print your next findings, could you ask yourselves: Is what I’m doing helping these folks? Or could this be something better left unsaid?

Keep Guard Home

[Re “Congressional Delegation Opposes VTANG’s Deployment to Caribbean,” December 14]: Vermont’s Congressional delegation is correct that the deployment for aggression against Venezuela puts Vermonters at needless risk; undermines the U.S. Constitution, which assigns war-making powers exclusively to Congress; and risks further escalating tension with Venezuela and its neighbors.

In light of Congress’ repeated failure to uphold its constitutional prerogative, the Vermont state legislature’s National Guard Caucus should rally around the Defend the Guard Act introduced in the Vermont House by Rep. Troy Headrick. This bill would prevent deployment of the Guard to combat where Congress has not authorized U.S. participation.

Overseas combat deployments sacrifice the Vermont National Guard’s availability for critical missions here at home. In July 2023, after the floods that devastated many Vermont communities, the Vermont National Guard showed up in a majority of Vermont’s communities to assess damage and communicate needs, distributed drinking water, conducted search-and-rescue operations, and helped keep Vermonters safe.

When the Vermont National Guard is deployed to unauthorized wars, it is not available to serve the urgent needs of the people of Vermont. Deployment to foreign combat can also take a real toll on Vermont National Guard members, many of whom signed up to serve the people of Vermont and the United States — not to fight unconstitutional wars.

If Congress will not act to protect the Vermont National Guard and the people of our state, then Vermont must. Defend the Guard offers a lawful, bipartisan way forward.

Bernie Is a ‘Hypocrite’

U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders has once again proven himself a hypocrite in Seven Days: “Congressional Delegation Opposes VTANG’s Deployment to Caribbean,” [December 14]. Let’s not forget that Sanders supported bringing the F-35s to Vermont, as multiple local news sources, including Seven Days, have been reporting since at least 2016. What did you think was going to happen, Bernie? That the Vermont Air National Guard would just happily fly F-35s four days a week over the Burlington area, disrupting and traumatizing residents, and never be deployed to a military action?

Bernie, you are so quick to criticize President Donald Trump and his administration for stoking “endless wars,” but when will you hold yourself to account for your own role in America’s endless warmongering? You say you will do everything you can to prevent “yet another war,” so why don’t you start by admitting the role you’ve played in the United States war machine?

‘Tasteless Cover’

Credit: Harry Bliss | Rev. Diane Sulivan

The cover on the year-end issue [December 24, 2025] was grotesque.

The puppy and the sad snowman were cute. The spouting and dripping blood, not so much. Really inappropriate and tasteless cover. Not up to your usual standards.

Horrible!!!! I had to tear it off so I could stop looking at it. What was the point?

We love Seven Days and have always been supporters, but last week’s cover left us disturbed. The illustration of a cute puppy ripping the arm off a snowman and the snowman spurting blood was disturbing, pointless and disgusting. That is not how we want to be greeted by our favorite newspaper. There are enough terrible images in our world these days. This felt gratuitous.

I read your publication frequently and enjoy most all that is written. I, however, was quite dismayed by the December 24 edition’s cover of a bloody snowman and puppy. It’s completely tasteless for the holiday season and insensitive to young children who see it as they walk out of grocery stores and other venues. A bloody snowman?? Maybe another month, but not the Christmas holiday season.

What was the purpose, anyway?

Please apologize to your public with an appropriate article explaining your decision to publish this.

I was very disheartened to see the cover of your December 24 issue. Seriously? A blood-spurting snowman and a dog carrying off the blood-dripping snowman’s arm? Please explain any possible rationale for this art on the cover of your newspaper.

This article appears in January 7 • 2026.

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